My hubby and I both changed jobs last year and both of our ex-employers used Fidelity as their 401k administrator. We both decided to keep our Fidelity 401ks. For me the main reason is that the Fidelity 401k is just better than my current Transamerica 401k. Having two different 401ks really taught me that not all 401ks are created equal, and just blindly dumping a lot of money into a 401k is not wise. Here’s a blow by blow comparison of my two 401ks and why I really miss contributing to my Fidelity 401k.
1. The Websites – Fidelity’s site is at 401k.com, and it’s very easy to remember and access. It displays all your funds and it is easy to see the current price and the number of shares you own. It’s also easy to run many types of reports on it. Fidelity’s site also lists what recent dividends you’ve gotten in the recent months. Overall I like the Fidelity site’s design and features. Transamerica’s site is ta-retirement.com, and there are very few tools when you log in. You get the most basic functionalities of checking your funds and their total value and you can change your contributions. I still haven’t figured out how to check how many shares of each fund I have on this site and the unit price of each fund. It seems that Transamerica deliberately obfuscate this information for their own benefit.
2. The Fund Selections — The Fidelity 401k has a fairly good list of Fidelity family funds available. There are funds of all types and some of them are rated quite highly on Morningstar. It’s quite easy to find information on these funds because they are all listed with their symbols. In contrast, the Transamerica funds do not have symbols that you can research. The reason is that Transamerica repackages funds from other families and sells it to the 401k, and then charges a fee. So there are funds from respectable families like Janus and Oppenheimer, but the funds are prepended with the Transamerica brand. The only possible reason for them to do it is to take an extra fee. That is probably why I can’t see how many shares of each fund I actually own, since the value of my shares is different from the publically traded Janus and Oppenheimer funds. Additionally, most of the Transamerica funds’ underline funds aren’t rated very high. The highest one was rated three stars on Morningstar. Ofcourse, they always say that past performance do not indicate future performance but if a product has been performing poorly for a long time it really doesn’t strike up consumer confidence.
3. The Fees – Fidelity has index funds that have very low expense ratios available for purchase. Expense ratios matter in long term and large investments since an expense of 0.1% could mean tens of thousands of dollars lost over a lifetime. Fidelity clearly tells you what the expense ratios are on their funds, but Transamerica does not. Transamerica probably does not want me to know how much they’re taking away from my retirement nest egg every year. I am pretty sure it’s a lot more than the Fidelity index fund expense ratios.
4. The Returns – It is unfair to compare the two portfolios purely based on the percentage I gained because the two portfolios have slightly different asset allocations. Also, the money in the two portfolios have appreciated for different lengths of time. Even so, its pretty obvious that over the long term the Transamerica portfolio will most likely underperform the Fidelity portfolio purely based on fees. Currently the Transamerica funds are definitely underperforming the Fidelity funds.
Basically, my current 401k through Transamerica is a bloodsucker and if I ever switch jobs and get a new administrator that’s less lame I will gladly roll over my entire 401k. I’m hoping that I find a company that has Vanguard as their administrator because that’s my favorite fund company and that’s where I keep my Roth IRA and most of my cash. The only person I know that has a Vanguard 401k is my dad, and he was able to buy into some closed Vanguard funds through his 401k that performed very well for him. Are there any of you out there that love your company but hate your 401k program?
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10 comments ↓
[...] The Baglady presents Not All 401ks Are Created Equal. Having two different 401ks has taught her that not all 401ks are created equal, and just blindly [...]
Of course not. Hardly all of anything are created equal. However I disagree with the implied message that you shouldn’t participate if you have a bad plan. Even if my 401k is the worst of them all I would still contribute to the maximum. Nobody is going to stay with their employer forever. A bad 401k will only drag you down for a few years. After you leave, you can roll it over to Vanguard.
Hi there!
I certainly don’t mean that you shouldn’t contribute to the horrible 401ks. I contribute very close to the maximum, but I didn’t expect that one plan could be so much worse than another. Considering that my former company is smaller than the current company it is kind of odd that the former plan is a lot better. There are a couple benefits even with the horrible fees and service: 1) I am getting deferred taxes.
2) It lowers my adjusted gross income so I can contribute to a Roth IRA.
yupyup.
[...] Carnival of Personal Finance #119 at Blunt Money — In this edition I wrote about my current lame 401k program. It wasn’t a very fun article. The following are articles that I really liked from this [...]
Bag Lady,
The new plan you describe with Transamerica is almost certainly an insurance contract, called a Group Variable Annuity. This disclosure is made on several of the profile sheets that are on the web site you reference in your post. To use the term “fund” falls right into the trap sprung by these vendors. Employees who participate in these group annuities own UNITS of a SUB-ACCOUNT that are part of the ANNUITY. These products are designed to look like, smell like, and sound like mutual funds but have many additional expenses (as well as a death benefit or annuitization feature). Beyond the fine print, one way to tell is to look for ticker symbols. There are none? Likely an annuity then.
A fair guess regarding expenses would be between 3-4%. CAUTION: If you change jobs and decide to rollover the balance to a fund family (like Fidelity), you may also have substantial surrender charges. I would want to know that before I put one penny in their product.
There in no reason not to have expense information. Ask for a copy of the ANNUITY CONTRACT and a PROSPECTUS for the sub-accounts. Be pleasant when you ask, lest you get fired for being difficult.
Best of luck!
Jim
Thank you Jim for the information. It seems like that is definitely the case. Transamerica is mostly an insurance company and I found some pages with investment information in my account. It says the funds are really TLIC Separate Accounts, which are annuity contracts with Transamerica Life Insurance Company. It also says that the “separate account investment choices offered are exempt from registration with the SEC, therefore, no prospectuses are filed for them”. So, that’s pretty lame.
TA likely offers you a stable value account or lower cost bond account. One idea to minimize the impact of these expenses is to use the group annuity plan for the fixed income or bond portion of your portfolio. Maintaining your equity positions in the more efficient plan (IRA or whatever) with mutual funds. You mentioned Vanguard and of course their equity products are cheap, the main reason they perform well of course. It is after all one pool of retirement money so look at it in aggregate.
I hope that makes sense and helps. A practical way to capture the tax-deferral available as well as any match money your ER might throw in. Best of luck!
Jim
[...] in the coming months. For example, I will transfer out of my crappy former 401k that I described in this post. My new employer’s 401k program is through Fidelity once again, and so I am a happy camper [...]
hi guys,
I hope i can clear some of these topics up. I spent the last two years of my life digging into every 401k situation out there, ive also talked to many different plan sponsors about 401ks. Your right if your 401k is that bad your better off staying away. Laws are changing everyday because the government knows how bad this problem really is. $40 million americans down the road will be short of retireing. everyone is telling you it a no-brainer to invest in a 401k plan because the employer match. What if there wrong? Actully i know there wrong if there matching 3% id say more than half of the employers plans fees are higher than that in America. And employees dont need to put up with this theres a 1800 number at the dol to call department of labor. Also if you write your employer to give you full disclousre and list all the conflicts of interest so you know where your money is going. they have to provide you this. Also on the dol website theres a form they have you send it to your provider they have to fill it out were all your kickbacks are going the average employee is paying 5-6people in the nest egg. The reason why is huge conflict of interest and unneccassary commissions. Guys 1% extra can eat up 40% of your money down the road its to important. My plan that i set up cost .60 for total cost average is 2.5% huge difference my plan accepts fiduciary resposbility and average fund cost is .020 useing alot of vanguard and low costing no commission funds. No kickbacks no revune sharing, theres a book out there called rip off 401k and fixing the 401k i would get them. also bloomberg news did a video called hidden fees , you can pull it up online. No plan should cost over 1.3%
Transamerica Retirement Services is TERRIBLE !!!!! Transamerica has bad fund performance. Transamerica will charge you fees that are sky high and not disclosed. Avoid Transamerica at all costs !! The Transamerica website is useless. Transamerica fees are very high. Transamerica charges redemption fees much higher than others.
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